Mike Lee steps out of Ted Cruz’s shadow

Sen. Mike Lee was Sen. Ted Cruz’s right-hand man throughout the 16-day government shutdown, pushing the tea party strategy that pitted Republicans against each other in a nasty intraparty battle over Obamacare.

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Mike Allen analysis

In the month since the shutdown heavily damaged his party, the first-term Utah Republican is methodically trying to show activists, conservative voters and his colleagues that he’s more than an unyielding, no-compromise conservative. He has been delivering a series of high-profile speeches calling for a mix of populist policies that he says would broaden the appeal of the conservative base beyond just being seen as an angry movement vehemently opposed to Obama’s Washington.

And in an interview with POLITICO, Lee said Republicans shouldn’t tie Obamacare-defunding provisions to the next spending bill to keep agencies running past Jan. 15, a significant concession that could make it easier for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner to unify their party.

“We’re in a totally different position than where we were before because it’s now been funded past the Jan. 1 start date,” Lee said, referring to the implementation of major portions of the health law in the new year. “Different circumstances require different strategies for our party.”

Asked whether it made sense to insist on a defunding of the health care law in the next fiscal fight, Lee said matter of factly: “No. I would love to have that, I’m just saying in the position that we’re in, I don’t think that’s a strategy that is going to work.”

In a way, Lee’s comments are in line with the rhetoric he has been espousing in the aftermath of the shutdown, which took a significant toll on his popularity back home and could cause problems for him in his 2016 reelection bid.

Lee has called for a “conservative reform agenda,” something that would promote government action to target poverty in America and encourage upward mobility among middle-class and poorer Americans. His agenda calls for proposals like an overhaul of the criminal justice system by allowing nonviolent inmates greater opportunity to reintegrate with society; providing an additional $2,500 per-child tax credit; and more flexible comp-time policies allowing workers to choose between days off and monetary compensation for working overtime.

Indeed, Lee is calling for a cease-fire between the warring tea party and establishment wings of his party, while pushing the right to embrace an agenda that he believes could appeal to independent voters who will determine control of Congress in the 2014 midterms.

“We tried to bridge that gap over the years with a lot of tactics and personalities and some spin of course, but it doesn’t work,” Lee said. “I think more to reunify the movement, the best way to do that is to find new and innovative affirmative ideas. … It’s not enough to be against things that are bad, but we also have to be in favor of things that are good.”

It’s a far cry from Lee’s defund-Obamacare push that infuriated many Republicans by making them appear weak fighting a law their party collectively hates. Some GOP senators think Lee got roped into the wrong crowd.

“Mike Lee is kind of viewed to be a nice guy who probably wishes he didn’t know Ted Cruz as well as he did,” said one fellow GOP senator who requested anonymity.

But Lee says he has no problems with Cruz — and is unapologetic of going that route last month, saying, “You never regret doing the right thing.”

Still, Lee added: “There are always things we could do to improve the quality of the message.”

Lee’s new push comes at a key time for his own political career. The tea party senator saw his own political standing tumble in the middle of the government shutdown fight, with a Brigham Young University poll last month showing the senator’s approval ratings dropping 10 points in four months to 40 percent.